This panel seeks to examine the modalities and processes of religious conversion in India with regard to three interconnected levels: the subjective experience of the actors involved, the (inter)group dynamics and the larger political and societal contexts.

Long Abstract:

This panel seeks to examine modalities of religious conversion in India. Conversion has often been analyzed as a radical and sudden change. While this may be the case this change does not need to be abrupt but can also be gradual. Moreover, conversion does not need to be total, that means involving at the same time and to the same extend belief, practice, life-style and social relationships. It may affect only one or more of these dimensions and to a different degree at different moments in the process of conversion. The panel is not about any particular religion. Rather, the focus is on the processes of changing religious affiliations with regard to three interconnected levels: a) the subjective experience of the actors involved, b) the (inter)group dynamics and, c) the larger political and societal contexts. Pertinent questions thus are: How do these micro, meso and macro levels interact in the processes of conversion? Can we identify different aspects as being crucial in the initial phase of conversion in contrast to the period after conversion? In which way are the general political and societal contexts relevant in this regard? Does, for example, the pressure from the state to become part of the “mainstream” push communities towards changing their religious affiliation? And, do people convert because they feel inferior vis-à-vis a dominant culture or religion? Is it more a conversion toward a new religion, or rather away from an old identity? We invite proposals that explore some of these or related questions in the Indian context.

The Legacy of Gandhi

About Me

Predicted by a palmist (fortune teller), who happened to be a friend, that there is no optimistic option for me to pursue my higher studies outside the geographical boundary of my home state called Orissa, situated in the eastern coast of India, which is one of the holiest and sacred place of piligrimage according to the Hindu Mythology. Derelicted by the fore-casting but with a sense of optimism, I tried my luck. Sitting below the hanging sword, I make it a point to give my best, but not at the cost of something else.
Luck decided to smile after a long assessment, boundaries obliterated and the belief in blind-beliefs were demolished for ever. With hope and possibilities, I crossed all the boundaries and started my academic journey with determination. This all about my uncertain but real embarkment of life as academics.
Having not known what sociology is, I opted for it (by the suggestion from friends) as a subject during my two years training as a student in the Intermediate of Arts. Eventually, I liked the subject and topped the class in the Annual exam which spawned an ever enduring interest as to choose Sociology as an Honours subject during my three years Bachelor of Arts Programme under Utkal University in my home state of Orissa. Dreadful performance in the final coupled with my friend’s prediction clogged the doors of hope. Luck winked through a small hole when I was cited in the tail end of the waiting list of a two years Masters Programme in Sociology at the University of Hyderabad, popularly known for its boom in cyber education and marginalization of social science. Going through the process of selection and elimination, I finally got a chance to pursue my Masters in Hyderabad which later opened up the doorsteps of forward march to the highest centre of learning in India called the Jawaharlal Nehru University for a two years of M.Phil in Sociology and finally to Singapore as a Ph.D candidate. And, now here at NUS, I am continuing with my interest on “The Dynamics of Mobilization and the Politics of Democratization: Exploring the Political role of Civil Society in Rajasthan (INDIA)” since January 2005.